


The die is cast

by Rainingday



Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-17 14:46:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14834277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainingday/pseuds/Rainingday
Summary: Erik woke up with his memory broken.





	The die is cast

 

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,  
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.  


I love you as the plant that never blooms,  
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers.  


Sonnet XVII–Pablo Neruda

 

* * *

 

“Who are you?” Erik asked, voice hoarse, hesitating. It’s the first time T’Challa ever saw something almost like fear flashed over his usually self-assured features. An expression like glass breaking, or ice cracking under frozen river, though the moment of frailty was gone as quickly as the moon retreated behind dove grey clouds.

“Who am I?” Those eyes, huge and dark as forest owls, fixed after him.

T’Challa remembered approaching the cages of sulking big cats; behind the bars the golden-haired, black-spotted beast took long, slinking strides, watched him with gaze as chill as the depths of a mountain lake, stopping his words like a noose around his neck. Erik Killmonger had spilled blood and he must pay, and T’Challa understood that's not something that could be changed even according to the assignation of blame.

However, who did he wish to be in front of a man who had abandoned his past? What had happened, he knew, was irrevocable, yet at the same time it seemed there had to be some way he could visit and twist the fateful day and make it all happen differently.

It was cruel for his father to decide that neither Erik nor N’Jadaka belonged to Wakanda, but T’Challa was not his father.

He edged gingerly toward Erik, as a man would move toward a skittish fawn, until they’re close enough to be sharing breath; he could smell the musk of him, of burnt grass and wet rocks, of still pools of blood glittering under rosy dusk. “I’m T’Challa, king of Wakanda. And you’re N’Jadaka, my cousin.” T’Challa said, after a pause that seemed to stretch like a life time. “My brother.”

 

* * *

 

 _Lies._ Erik thought to himself. His memories might be rustled, but not his brain. He didn’t miss the way the vermilion-dressed warrior’s mouth pinched in disdain, eyes filling with silent accusations like a judge’s scroll, crackled with a baleful kind of rusted light. And then she started to speak in a language he couldn’t quite fully grasp, which the vowels sounded foreign and familiar at the same time, like a humming song he didn’t really remember how it went.

To T’Challa’s credit, his face betrayed no emotions as he answered whatever question she had for him. He was the perfect picture of pearl-edged royalty, gilded and smooth-skinned, Erik was surprised that he did not find it unbeautiful.

Soon their voices sounded like the low whiz of cicadas in the far-misted hills, Erik didn’t bother listening.

He attempted to sit up straighter, but his muscles were sluggish, limbs like cement, and the movement sent a spike of pain radiating through his body, with a crack and a spurt then smashed down through bone, fluid, membrane and into squirting spine. He tightened his fist and let the searing hot throb passed.

The feeling of helplessness was nearly intolerable.

Those names didn’t ring any bell, and the jabbering syllables tasted bland, useless. He looked out at a sky so blue it felt fake. A bird fluttered by and he strained his eyes to keep track of its flight before it disappeared over the cobalt horizon.

The mattress beneath him was soft and fluffy, too comfortable. Erik didn’t think he was used to this kind of luxury. The remains of a dream were melting in his head (rain falling into puddles of blood neon; yellow light pouring into dry land, blood poppies nodding lazily in a breeze), like waves rolling back into the sea instead of crashing onto the beach, leaving him a hollow emptiness.

Maybe he was roving in another dream, and was only being shocked briefly out of sleep.

When he tried hard enough though, he could hear his heart beating a dull slow rhythm. A low bell tolling in the distance, like someone buried six feet under, thumping against damp earth.

Erik drifted off again.

Even though he had slept his ass off the past week (at least that was what the teenage girl had been rambling when he woke up, before he asked who she was), there still lingered a bone-deep tiredness. An unwanted companion malicious in its silence, stalking, waiting to seize an opportunity in to find a more intimate relationship than the one it already did.

(T'Challa was watching him, cautious like he was a bird about to take flight, a cat about to jump. Suddenly Erik didn't want to meet his gaze.)

He sought and probed the dark recesses of his memory, forced his aching mind to reel back to the bizarre visions, fumbling, groping and stumbling, as if a desperate climber holding onto the high ledge, unsteady at the precipice.

A thousand swarming wasps buzzing in his head, clashing and fighting and dying inside his skull.

It wasn’t long before insidious numbness dragged his reluctant conscious back down into that deep pit from which he had emerged.

And the blackness engulfed him once more.

 

* * *

 

Shuri had made it clear from the beginning that she didn't trust Erik. Not his brooding demeanour, and certainly not the spurious smirk that didn't quite touch his face.

Nonetheless, in this case it wasn't like her opinions mattered to T'Challa. As a king with an extremely tight schedule he sure wasted an awful lot of time concerning about Erik's well-being. As soon as Shuri confirmed Erik's condition turned steady, he had arranged him to stay in the penthouse floor of the royal palace, with guards on his tail of course, still Shuri dislike the idea of considering him part of the family.

There was something of a foreclosure about it.

Lying was a skill and a habit not easily forgotten, she reminded T'Challa, not to mention he seemed to be regaining bits and crumbs of his memory; the recognition of his name, of the vibranium ring identical to the one T'Challa wore, shone like the glint of a blade. Perhaps not all of it would return, but Shuri presumed it's only a matter of time.

None of the worries affected T'Challa's decision, he firmly declined the suggestion to hand him over to the Americans, remained as determined as he was when decided to reveal Wakanda's true identity to the world. "He stays, and that's final." A dark, intense look entered his eyes and Shuri felt an unfamiliar cold shiver crept up her spine, she realized then she's not going to win this battle.

T’Challa hardly ever took things for his own desire, but when he did—when he did, he didn’t let them go easily.

It's one of those rare times that both her ingenuity and laboratory failed her. Her brother had fallen so easily for a story he had to have known was false, because he wanted to believe.

She used to think T'Challa was the see-through Mediterranean Sea, and that he had no secrets from her, hence she knew him as clearly as she knew her own image in a mirror. It hurt that she was proven wrong.

Erik stared her down impassively.

For what it's worth, T'Challa might not be entirely wrong. Erik seldom walked out the palace, spending most of his time sleeping, in the library, on the edge of the balcony, legs dangling over the side. The statue of Bast threw a frontier of shade across him; it advanced imperceptibly across his half-shadowed face, a torturing slow annexation of the daylight flare.

Silence settled on him like ashes. He seemed disinterested about the person he used to be, eyes rummaging at nothing for he knew he’s held and couldn’t move.

T'Challa had left her in charge of him, insisted in a very calm and business-like manner before he flew off to deal with the United Nations's affairs. "I'm confident of you to handle N'Jadaka. He's in good hands."

Shuri wasn't so sure about that.

Though Erik had been quiet about the whole situation, made no protest about the specially built kimoyo bracelet cuffed on his wrist and her demands of the weekly examination. So she supposed it wouldn't be too hard to tolerate his presence.

It really shouldn't have surprised her when he came in one day with bleeding lips and arm, several broken ribs and a stony Dora Milaje trailed behind. A street fight, he said.

"Bast! For your own sake I hope nobody is dead." She said dryly, as she examined his wounds.

Erik simply scoffed.

The whole thing felt offbeat.

Later when she discovered that it had been a planned assault against Erik, she was livid.

“Why did you lie to me?” She accused, bursting into Erik’s room without bothering to knock on his door, disoriented by the vicious new possibility she’d stumbled into.

Blankly he looked at her, through gold rimmed glasses, sitting on the luxurious lounge chair, waiting for her to find her breath. There was nothing impatient in his manner, quite the opposite.

“It wasn’t a street fight! Those men weren't civilians, and it's obvious they came prepared, there’s no way you didn’t know it's a trap!”

He glanced at Shuri sideways in his mocking, self-amused way. “Yeah, I figured,” he said carelessly, returning to the book he was reading.

“You're not answering my question,” she said, furious by how lightly he’d tossed this off (but why did she care? Why on earth did she care more than the villain who didn't appear to give a damn about what had happened to him?).

“Why didn’t you tell me the truth, reported them? Do you not think I would have done something? They have absolutely no _right_ to treat you like that! Don’t get me wrong I’m glad you didn’t decide to beat them into pulps, and I understand you don’t believe in justice served but—”

“Justice belonged to the victors.” He cut off her sentence in a voice that came out sounding far too nasty, and any trace of previous amusement was lost in his smile. It wasn't a smile. It was teeth and menace. “And since I’m merely a prisoner, I don’t see the point.”

Whatever words died away on her lips, a sharp rush of despair washed over Shuri, as terrible as she felt she couldn’t deny the truth behind his logic— _we had been defiled by an outsider’s hands_ —and from his expression, she realized he knew that, too.

“You hate my guts.” Erik said, after some moments, in his eerie flat voice. “So do them. There's blood on my hands. All the looks—the hatred, I’ve seen it many times, in my dreams, everyday. It’s all too familiar you know, almost nostalgic.”

“What T’Challa wanted from me, I’ve no clue, though I highly doubt it’ll be the same thing they want.” He looked into her eyes again, significantly, knowingly, with pity served lukewarm. "The debates on the news are quite interesting, T'Challa is up to something big, influential, it's going to be life changing. But I'm telling you people loathe changes, and, well, I'm the _foreigner_ , I'll be more surprise if no one has taken any action yet."

"You think you're targeted not because of who you are but who you represent?" Shuri was dumbfounded, "How dare you! We're not savages!"

Did she fail him somehow? The thought left a knot in her gut.

"Hmm, no, I'm fairly certain those fuckers knew my identity, though does it really make a difference?" Erik tilted his head to the side slightly in taunting thought. "Relax, princess, I'm not dishonoring your precious country. Sure, you have the most advanced technology in the world, probably the richest too, even so you are still members of the mankind. You don't get to get rid of humanity."

"Do you not love the tales that go out with heroes having the enemies heads rolling?" He tapped the hardback of the book Folklore of Wakanda on his lap, gave off a watchful, brutish air of steeling himself against attack. "Deny it all you want, but we ain't that different."

Shuri didn't remember how did she return to her room. Everything was faded and silent in the dawn.

Before she fell into a dreamless dream, she thought she heard the fat clunk of a knife down against the cutting board, covered with dried blood acquired the color of rust, that shed once upon a time ago.

 

* * *

 

One's mind occasionally worked on strangely and simply, cheating on one with smoke and mirrors. Sometimes at first glance one would see things he subsequently undetected. Or rather, when one looked again he noticed things he initially didn’t realize were there.

There was something soothing about watching Erik's chest rise and fall. The shimmering, brisk feeling when put his nose over a glass of warm whiskey, the flavor so rich he felt he could have got drunk off it. Though T'Challa knew the peaceful illusion wasn't going to last.

Just as the thought flashed over his mind, Erik's posture changed.

The holographic data of his physiological information sparkled pale blue as it hung in midair, projected up from T'Challa's kimoyo bead, and he could see his heart rate increased, blood pressure rose, but his breath was slow and controlled, and his body became demonstrably still, so still that it's almost alarming. As if a cornered animal strapped down to the bones, unable to move, unable to fight.

A soundless scream winding itself through his trapped soul.

He wondered what nightmares his cousin was running from. Did he savour the same bitter taste of iron and failure as he did while holding his father in arms, and to realize that it was a too-late attempt to keep the crimson fluid from escaping under his finger?

Shuri had assured him that Erik's symptoms was normal. She told him the brain function that work for sorting and cataloging his memories had been shaken up, and so the splintered puzzles of his mind—past, present, and imagination would all be mixed together, temporary.

"Which also mean he can't control what vision he's going to recur," she mused thoughtfully, "whatever demons he tried to hide are unleashed now."

"It truly is like opening the pandora's box."

Regardless of the disapproved frown from Queen Ramonda and the Taifa Ngao, T’Challa refused to keep Erik bounded like a prisoner. He’s not going to thank you, his mother said, wild like he was, it’s harder to accept charity than to give it. A wild animal that kept for years and seemingly tamed would still one day turned on its keeper and chewed him up without warning.

Truth was, T’Challa would rather give him the chance to claw him, any response would be better than the apathetic scanning of the chamber.

Missing someone felt like starvation. It should be impossible to miss someone whom he knew for less than a few hours, then again how he ought to explain the gnawing in his gut, the unappeasable hunger swallowing his rigorous discernment? T’Challa longed to see the eyes burning in the glare, skin soaking up the sunlight once more.

No matter how clearly or veiled by cloud, no matter how long the night, the sun would rise and shine everywhere over the course of the day.

T’Challa started to collect Erik’s images. Shuri pursed her lips and said nothing.

Erik’s one of those people who didn’t pose for a photo, photographs of him had the same attribute, even relaxed he had the look of a man guarding something. T’Challa tried to search in his eyes for hidden scars, but they acted like sunglasses, cloaking what lied behind them. It’s not so much that he seemed cut off from the world, more like the world couldn’t get close to him, like a glass case whose panes were always misting up.

Digging into Erik’s past had been a rougher journey than T’Challa anticipated. As a previous member of the JSOC ghost unit, the U.S. government had done a thorough job to wipe off his records, only that wasn’t the tricky part. Oakland was a tough nut to crack.

The man he met when signed the real estate contract wore dark, elegant suit, fit in the way of people who were obsessed over workouts and organic food. “Your highness, it’s a pleasure to work with you.” said Hinton, his voice had an airy condescending trill, the adenoid lilt of champagne sippers.

T’Challa nodded and asked, “Some parts seemed to be missing in your folders of the former residents, what happened to the records in between 1992?”

A quick grimace, then a fond, gracious smile.

“I’m not sure, some drunks might have took it as drugs-wrapping-paper, though I'm afraid it’s more possible that it has never been filed in the first place. You see, here ain’t Beverly Hills, people are more interested in tracking the sound of nightly gunfire, or where to look for bodies in the morning…” Hinton trailed off with a shrug, “but not some mundane paperworks.” the mellow, cheerful way he said made the things sounded so reasonable.

T’Challa knew what he said wasn’t completely false, he could easily picture people peeping through the blackened, empty windows like hollow eye sockets, before rolling under their beds when the deafening bang filled the cut along side streets and tight alleyways and glasses showering the destitute yards.

Bombs, and then the fire.

“So what are you trying to find, if you don't mind me asking?”

The sins of my father, T'Challa thought gloomily, a broken necklace of secrets.

His father and Zuri thought if they believed in something hard enough, it would come true, until the appearance was the reality. They forgot that life depended upon finding, and what had vanished had simply gone into hiding, hidden elsewhere in the dark so that what they incarnated would outlive everything discernible.

And sometimes seeing the glimpse of things would be more than enough.

T'Challa was awoken by the dying of a scream, a tremendous, earsplitting blast that sent a roar of hot wind and slammed into him and threw him across the room, far away from the former king.

For a moment he lay too stunned to move, his rib cage heaved with the effort of drawing oxygen, his ears rang, and his heart was pounding like muffled thunder. Slowly he took a deep breath or two to compose himself. He hadn't dreamt of his father's death since he visited the ancestral plane, he didn't think it would come back again.

The ring on his left hand carried a chilly tone under the pale moon light.

To force the choking, dreadful sensation from his mind he replayed the visit from earlier in the evening. “You want to know about Erik Stevens.” the eyes behind those reading glasses had the severe, hieratic stare of a hawk.

Officer Raymond was a hard man to find, but not as hard as to break the sealed lips from a senior war dog. S'Vyn had been unwilling at first, clearly uncomfortable to betray information of his previous commander. He was one of the war dog that was stationed in Oakland around the time N'Jobu arrived, who must have known something about N'Jadaka's file that never registered in Wakanda's official record.

How could it not ever existed?

Frustratingly, S'Vyn's answer was a disappointment. It seemed that whatever deal his uncle and father made was strictly in between them, no track left behind.

At least he was given the name of Raymond Murphy, his child had been friends with Erik before he was sent away to group homes. Also he's a retired homicide detective that had worked on the case of Joel Steven's murder.

Raymond's house was set back from the road, in the middle of a quiet wood. "Erik Stevens... it has been so many years since I last heard this name." said the former officer as he closed the door and gestured T'Challa to take a seat.

There's not much to see in the tiny living room, not exactly clean, but everything was decorated in a military orderliness. T'Challa stepped carefully over the tattered brown rug, sitting down at a fusty single sofa chair, and Raymond on his opposite.

"Thank you for inviting me in, I appreciate your willingness to help out my question about Erik, and his father."

"It's fine. Nothing much for an old man to do anyway these days." He said, scrutinizing at T'Challa closely. "I remember his father's case, yes, the whole event gave me an odd vibe, one of the strangest I've ever encountered."

Raymond cleared his throat, pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. "It was a huge mess, too many pieces were missed. The deadly wound itself was unusual enough, not to mention about Erik's attitude, there's something he knew but didn't tell, that I could feel. And other loopholes, the missing guns from its hiding place, I originally thought it was an arm trade went wrong, but it just didn't add up with the untouched cash."

"Nothing makes sense, the supervisor had been acting real weird too. To this day I still couldn't figure out what had happened exactly, however based on my experience I assumed someone had been putting pressure. It's hardly a surprise that the case was dropped like a hot potato."

On the surface T'Challa was calm, but deeper down, emotions were churning in invisible, ferocious currents.

The man lit a cigarette. "Sorry, an old habit." he said courteously. "Do you mind?"

T'Challa waved his hand. The faint rumble floating from the nearby freeway made the silence between them seem vast, devouring.

"It might sound silly, but I did believe Erik when he told me dead serious that he’s going to kill whoever's responsible for his father's death," his lips upturned in a wistful smile. "So much pain, and such potential! All wasted for a one-way revenge. Though I really can't blame him."

"Have he succeeded?" He asked. T'Challa replied begrudgingly, "I supposed, in some way."

He nodded. "Well, can't say I know much about Joel Stevens. He was a busy man, and tight-lipped about his doings. Never saw his wife. But his boy Erik used to be friends with my son Michael. They weren't the inseparable type, he's a wary one, that kid, too smart for his own good; just enough to hang around after school, playing basketball at the street corner, sneaking snacks from the shop, things boys do at their age."

"Michael liked him, a lot, Erik would help him with his homework, and other older boys from school," he exhaled a long, wiggling tail of smoke. "He had always been a soft spoken child, never actually learned how to be tough, and his mother was just too ill to even help herself. Still bills had to be paid, and I probably wasn't around much as I would have preferred. And that was my mistake, maybe that's why I lost my only son so early, a punishment from God."

Raymond's eyes were distant, almost lost in the haze of his cigarette. There followed a long still moment.

Eventually, his weary gaze began to dart around the room, and then returned to T'Challa. "Do you want to see their pictures?" He asked, as he laid his cigarette in the ashtray, stood up and walked to the dusty shelf, mindfully pulling out a large leather bound book, with slightly fades gold embossing for the title.

The photos were slightly out of focus, a bit underexposed, and the composition was certainly no work of art, but T’Challa could still distinguish the outline of a younger Erik. Unexpectedly, he was a short, skinny boy, smaller than kids around his age, and his eyes had not yet veiled with impenetrable fog.

He tried to imagine him smiling, laughing, joking; imagine him in ardent-gold instead of vicious-red; imagine him being anything other than a ruined relic.

"I was the first officer who arrived at Joel's apartment, something was broken beyond repair that day," Raymond said, contemplating the end of his burning cigarette. "A child shouldn't have lost his father so young."

The last picture he saw was Erik heading toward a shabby police car, carrying a grim expression, mouth set in that way T'Challa’d noticed before in veterans. Lips locked down in a solemn line, never letting the pain cry out because then they’d have to admit how hurt it was, and it would be unendurable.

And like the soldiers who was in war, Erik savored an annihilating remorse in a self-destructive way, a firework display that would only end in cinders, desolation and silence.

His face was fragile and invincible.

T'Challa closed his eyes, rubbed them with thumb and forefinger. What should he do with a man who had gone too far to be saved?

 

* * *

 

Erik wanted to smash some things.

The nightmares were getting worse, so much worse than he would ever imagined, and the worst part was that he couldn't tell if it truly did happen, or was it all part of a cruel joke which his mind was trying to screw with him. He couldn't bear it, he couldn't, he wanted to scream, to yell, to howl—but there was nothing to do but bear it.

Too late. Erik was marked long ago, tainted with a slow lit madness like smoldering damp leaves fires in autumn.

It would never be the same jerking up from a nightmare during midnight and to say it out loud in the promising safety of the bright morning about its cliché, foolish plot. And who could he tell anyway?

He buried his head under the freezing water. He finally screamed.

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed. All mistakes are mine.


End file.
